


A Campfire Story

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Dorks in Love, Fluff, Historically Accurate Camping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 19:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: It's a nighttime stakeout looking for an unusual quarry in the middle of Central Park. Graves and Newt are on their own for this one, and are enjoying an awkward kind of camp-out. One of the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration gets in the way of things, but Newt has a sweet solution to the problem.





	A Campfire Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chiharu_Hikari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiharu_Hikari/gifts).



> Here's your gift! Fluffy, delightful gramander. A pairing I don't do often: but I had a LOT of fun with this! Happy holidays, friend!! <3<3<3

It’s a lovely evening in New York City. If not for the lights they’d be able to see the stars overhead; as it is, city lights do well. And out here in the middle of Central Park, it’s dark and quiet enough that Graves can almost imagine that they aren’t in the city limits at all. The campfire Newt’s built, just a little one, doesn’t help matters: the gentle smell of woodsmoke drifts around them and the flames crackle merrily, casting golden shadows on the surrounding trees and onto the waters of the still pond by which they’re sitting.

“I do hope we’re right that this the place it’s coming to feed,” Newt mutters, half to himself, as his pen scratches busily in his journal. Graves takes the opportunity to watch the magizoologist, appreciating the way that the light sets his ginger hair on fire and draws out the cinnamon splash of freckles on his nose and cheeks. He’s handsome, and never more so than when he’s focused on investigating creatures. 

“I hope that you’re right,” Graves is compelled to say. “This is your theory.”

Newt looks up at him, eyes dancing. At some point Graves will stop staring, but this moment is not that point. “Yes, well, you came along,” he says. “I think the theory belongs to us both.”

“Oh, all right,” Graves says, waving his hand. “I’ll give you that.”

For a little while, they’re quiet. Although this is technically a night on the job, Graves had managed to ensure that this stakeout would be only the two of them. There’s a potential that there’s a large sewer alligator using this pond as a method of getting in an and out of the sewer system—this was, at least, where it was last spotted. Newt’s sure that he can handle it alone, but there is not a wizard in New York who wants Newt Scamander chasing magical creatures unsupervised. Which leaves Graves to sit here with him in the cool night air by a fire, feeling immensely clever for essentially getting away with going camping with Newt.

“We’ve been out here for three hours,” Newt says after a while. He sets his journal aside and leans back on his hands, watching the pond peevishly. “I’m beginning to feel dubious.”

“Just enjoy the night off,” Graves advises. 

Newt sighs. “I’m trying, but all the same…I do think we’d better stay all night, just to be on the safe side. Don’t need the alligator getting out from under our noses.”

“There have been worse stakeouts.”

“That doesn’t make this one good, Percy.”

“The only complaint I personally have is that Gamp didn’t give us the tools to Transfigure a stick into, say, a dinner for two,” Graves says. 

At that, Newt brightens. He picks up his satchel—not the suitcase, a satchel—and begins to rummage through it. “I can help with that!”

Graves watches with only mild apprehension. He’s learned to trust Newt, but he’s still sometimes surprised. He pokes the fire absently, keeping it going. And then Newt pulls a little round white tin out of his satchel and tosses it to Graves. He turns it over. “Campfire marshmallows?”

“The name seemed appropriate,” Newt says. “It’s just sugar, really, but I have some other—” He stops and starts digging again. Graves pops open the tin and pulls out a round marshmallow, biting into it absently as he waits. It sounds like Newt’s got books in there. How much extradimensional space does one man possibly need?

Newt emerges with a triumphant smile and holds up a box of graham crackers and a foil-wrapped chocolate bar. Graves has no idea what to do with this. “…I thought you were aiming at a marshmallow roast?”

“Better than that!” Newt says. “We should make Some Mores!”

Graves blinks. “Some what.”

“Some Mores!” New repeats. “I accidentally got a copy of a book from the American Girl Scouts, you know, their handbook. It’s quite a good book, I feel as if I ought to distribute it to your Aurors who are going out of New York. To help them.”

“You think they’re that bad at outdoor work?” 

Newt is unashamed. “They’re not bad, just a little naïve. The book’s got things about trails and safe fires and so on and so forth. But anyway, the important part is the campfire cooking bit.”

Graves returns to the tin of marshmallows. “I’ve done marshmallow roasts, you know. The fad started when I was a teener.”

“You haven’t ever got chocolate involved,” Newt says with certainty. He comes around the fire to sit right next to Graves. Deftly he opens the paper of the chocolate bar and the foil wrapper. “I promise, it’s even better than usual.”

“For you,” Graves says, “and literally only for you.”

The smile he gets in response to that is positively smug. The people who think Newt blushing, innocent, and naïve have clearly never been on the receiving end of that thing. “Summon us a couple of sticks, would you?”

A brief delay appears as they have a minor argument about the proper way to roast a marshmallow. Graves is of the opinion that the only way to do it is a light golden tinge; Newt wants to set the damn thing on full fire. Finally Newt throws up his hands and declares that they’ll each do it their own way and “if your chocolate doesn’t melt, don’t blame me!”

Burning-sugar smells fill the air as they wait. Newt’s shoulder rests against Graves’ and Graves is content. They’re neither of them men for wild displays of public affection, and this is exactly right, as it should be. A campfire in Central Park, waiting for an alligator to come out of the pond, while they follow an outlandish idea that only Newt could have conceived. 

“There—you take it off now, before it burns,” Graves says after a little while, withdrawing the marshmallow from the fire. It’s sagging a little on the stick, threatening to fall into the flames, and it’s just the right kind of golden brown all around.

Newt rolls his eyes, but braces his own stick between his knees and breaks a graham cracker in two, puts a chocolate square on it, and passes it to Graves. “Sandwich it,” he says, taking up the stick again and watching with unhidden delight. 

Tentatively, trying to avoid getting too much sugar on his fingers, Graves uses the two halves of the sandwich to pull the marshmallow off the stick. He eyes Newt with completely justified wariness as he tries to take a bite. Graham cracker crumbs sift down on his shirt, the marshmallow sticks to his fingers as it squashes, and the chocolate gets all over his mouth. Still—“I think we’ve reached the pinnacle of culinary invention,” he says through the sugar.

“I told you!” Newt says, laughing, eyes sparkling. One-handed, he’s assembling the necessary pieces for his own sandwich. And then he yelps in alarm, because his marshmallow has just set itself on fire. He yanks the stick out of the fire, blowing frantically on the blue flames until they’re out, leaving the marshmallow charred, black bubbles crunching as he sandwiches it.

“And you’re going to eat that?”

Newt takes a bite. “Look,” he says, licking his lips, “what matters in this is that the chocolate melts right. That’s why you do it!”

“It’s like eating charcoal.”

“Bugger that, my chocolate melted!”

Graves laughs. “Pass the crackers.”

He and Newt get through two more each before the sugar is just too much and they give up on eating entirely. By now, the night’s gotten a little chilly: it might be after midnight. Graves gets an arm around Newt’s slim shoulders and Newt sighs, sliding a little closer. The fire crackles at their feet.

“You know,” Newt says after a while, “there’s poetry, in that handbook.”

“Epigraphs?”

“Very pleasant ones,” Newt says. He looks up at the sky, stars hazed out by the city lights surrounding the park. “There’s one poet I looked up, and she’s rather good. Poem made sense, you see.”

Graves looks sideways at Newt. “Oh?”

“Leave all and follow—follow!” Newt says, in the cadence of someone reciting a poem. “Lure of the sun at dawn, lure of a wind-paced hollow, lure of the stars withdrawn; lure of the brave old singing brave perished minstrels knew; of dreams like sea-fog clinging to boughs the night sifts through…”

His voice trails off. Graves waits a minute, but no more is forthcoming. Newt’s gaze is distant, at the treetops. There’s a moment of clarity, then: Newt’s leaving soon. He’ll be off again, running after whatever comes next in his adventurous life. City life isn’t for him, at least not for long.

“Come back, when you’re done chasing all those lures,” Graves says. He kisses Newt lightly on the cheek. “There’s a lot waiting in New York for you. It is the greatest city in the world, after all.”

“I’ve seen a lot of cities,” Newt says, looking down at Graves’ knees, a sure sign of some kind of overwhelming emotion, if he can’t even look at Graves’ face. “And I’d have to agree that New York is the greatest city in the world.”

Graves cocks an eyebrow. “Last time I said that, you laughed at me.”

“I reconsidered,” Newt says softly. His hand finds Graves’ and he laces their fingers together. “I think that any city would be the greatest, if you were in it. And you’re here. So…”

He trails off, but that’s fine. Their silences are one of the things that Graves likes best. Newt is comfortable around him, for some reason, comfortable enough to laugh with him and tease him and to hold his hand by a campfire. Newt’s affection is a rare thing. Graves treasures it. And even if their quarry never shows up that night, and Graves gets an earful from Senior Aurors Winfrith and Abigail the next day about what a pain it had been to slog through the sewers and he and Newt have to do that job instead—Graves is very glad he’s here with Newt tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> I had so. Much. Fun. Researching for this fic.
> 
> Sewer alligators have a storied history dating back to 1927 _at least_. Thomas White describes one in _Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania_ : “George Moul, an employee of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Highways and Sewers, made an unusual discovery on the job in September 1927. He was assigned to fix a blocked sewer on Royal Street in the city’s North Side. Moul removed the manhole cover and began to clear an obstruction when he realized that a set of ‘evil-looking’ eyes was staring at him. After the initial surprise faded, Moul realized what he was looking at. He managed to grab the head of the three-foot alligator and drag it out of the sewer. After tying a rope to the alligator, Moul took it to his home on Lockhart Street. He and his co-workers never figured out how it got into the sewer or how it had traveled so far north.” (White, Thomas. _Forgotten tales of Pennsylvania_. (Charleston: History Press, 2009) pp. 13–14.)  
>  By 1932, reports were appearing of sewer alligators in New York proper. In 1984 in Paris, they _really did_ find a Nile alligator in the sewer. Her name’s Eleanore, and she resides in an aquarium in Vannes. Not so far-fetched of a story!!!  
> [The original recipe!](http://oldschoolpastry.pastrysampler.com/1927-original-smores-recipe-and-methods-for-a-campfire/)  
>   
>  And [National Geographic](http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/14/the-gooey-story-of-smores/) has a more general view of how we got where we are today.  
>   
> Fannie Stearns Davis, the poet Newt quotes, published three books of poetry (1913, 1915, 1923), all frankly remarkable poems. I do wish I’d have gotten “The Strange Things of the Sea” BEFORE I published “The Thing In The Mirror”, it would have suited well.  
> 


End file.
